


The Fifth and The Final

by orphan_account



Series: RT Hybrid Story [3]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Blood, Emetophobia, Fighting, Gun Violence, Guns, Minor Character Death, RT Hybrid AU X, Stalking, Violence, Vomit, brief descriptions of violence, do not worry it is just ocs, rt hybrid AU, tags may change after the posting of a new chapter, tags may change upon posting of each new chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-08 20:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1955478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They should have realized. God, why hadn't they realized...?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Denial

Every single choice that is made leads you down a complex line of consequences, your reactions to which bring even more choices and reactions and consequences. The morning you chose cereal, you doomed the last bagel in the bag to begin visibly molding as the bacteria feast on the yeast and cinnamon and raisins. When you see the mold the next morning, you throw the bagel away, and it is carried first by your hands, then the mechanical arm of a garbage truck, then by gravity into a landfill, where mold will continue to eat away at the stiffening bread and small rodents will pick at the parts that haven't been swallowed by white and green. Though the bagel has completely vanished from your life, forgotten, it is now responsible for poisoning a mother mouse, and by extension, her newborn babies. Their nest now lies still and quiet in the midmorning sun. The scavengers race the soil to see who can devour and repurpose the bodies of the mice first. But this race is won by an outlier; a single monarch butterfly, lost from its migration group but driven towards warmth nonetheless, will make a meal of the family of mice before moving on.

And none of that would have happened if you hadn't chosen cereal that morning.

::::::

It isn't even painful anymore. Maybe it was at first, but it's been a long time and without the shock factor, a needle sliding under skin or a small biopsy is absolutely nothing.

Then again, most things are.

Geoff and the others had tried to save him. That much, he knows for certain. Whether or not any of them are even in the country anymore is an absolute mystery to Gavin. There had been gurneys and locked doors and pass codes and he hasn't seen actual light in so long that he might just go crazy. The Brit is altogether a defeated man, constantly exhausted from the poking and prodding and testing and too drained to really care about anything at all.

When the doctors are around, he doesn't think about anything at all. He just stares at the white walls and looks for patterns in the ridges. In his new room, however, he thinks. When Gavin isn't being whisked into a sequestered lab in a dark corner for testing, he's in the room they started taking him to after Feliark called him "patient zero." There's a twin bed shoved in the corner, a small bathroom with a shower and always-full soap bottles, a little table with a chair on each side, and a stack of paperback novels with titles like The Mystery On Fourth Street.

Per his request, there are also exactly three photographs on his wall, affixed with scotch tape; one of him, the Ramsey's, and Meg all beaming and cheerful in Bhudapest, one of Meg, Michael, Lindsay and himself enjoying swimmy bevs at Michael and Lindsay's pool, and one of Dan and Ray, hugging and making genuinely joyful expressions.

God, it's been ages since he's heard from Dan. Gavin wonders if the conflict has stopped briefly in response to the whole hybrid thing, but it doesn't seem likely to him; considering how bad things are in America, he doubts a Middle Easter country rife with corruption and cruelty would pause even for a moment for any reason at all.

For much of the time Gavin has been held at OHSU, he's been concerned for Ray's wellbeing. The Puerto Rican had been taking things kinda hard, and having some burly dude made of muscles leaving dead mice outside of your door in the ugly hours of the morning would certainly not aid in alleviating discomfort. Awful as it is, the detainment of one his best friends cones with one good point; Hawk Guy can't touch him. There are hundreds of wolves and bears and cheetahs with guns and armor and training between him and Ray, and if that isn't enough to keep him safe, nothing short of Hawk Guy's untimely demise will be.

He's never seen any other facilities, but Gavin bets there are certain ones that specialize in a type of animal, and that's how things are run. He is, obviously, in a bird-specific center. The security is optimized to keep flight risks (ha, ha. Barbara would be proud.) out of the air and in line. Thin wires carrying an electrical current lock up the outdoor spaces, and most guards carry a set of intricate chain loops that they can use to bind wings down at any moment.

Mournfully, Gavin stretches his own wings out and gives them a few small flaps. The muscles are all stiff and weak from disuse. It used to drive him mad, when they wouldn't let anyone fly. These days, feeling wind curl playfully through your feathers and your hair whipping back and the total and utter lightness of the whole ordeal is just a distant memory of something that is just barely in the territory of noticeably painful.

It's an ache, draining and cold and numb, that lives in his chest and every beat of his heart spreads the dark ache through every artery, every vein in his body.

And it meant absolutely nothing. The constant smell of bleach? Nothing. The countless pinprick scars littering Gavin's arms? Nada. The fluorescent light above his head that flickers exactly every thirteen seconds? Not. A Goddamn. Thing.

His life is mostly a few different rooms and a familiar trek through empty hallways. Anything, anything at all... Would be better than this.

Sometimes he wonders if any of it is even real. Maybe the needles full of clear liquid are keeping him in a coma somewhere, dead to the world but screaming for help.

Is Michael standing beside him, voice cracked and defeated, begging for his friend to wake up? Is Meg standing by his side, rubbing circles into his limp hands and brushing the hair from his eyes? Is Ray asleep in a chair in the corner after a full night of talking to him?

Okay... That's a bit of a stretch. Maybe. Probably? The idea seems... Nice, but false. Like a lie you try so hard to tell yourself, but never quite believe. The thought is a little too nice to dismiss completely, but Gavin tucks it away for now; it can surely only bring him trouble.

\--

"Come on, bitch. Time for your slop."

Lindsay lifts her head up the needed couple of inches to glare at the guard that has spent the last several days making her life hell. His smile just grows wider. It disgusts her to do so, but she grits her teeth and says nothing, instead climbing to her feet. She's memorized his full name- Leonard Jackson- And plans to completely destroy his entire life at a later date. For now, he has a gun and possibly retractable claws to go with his flicking striped tail and flashing canines.

Attacking a guard probably wouldn't benefit her chances of a successful escape, either.

Lindsay's been in this dumpy little prison for a very short amount of time, but she has always been a kinesthetic learner, and this place has been a gigantic interactive lesson. She knows the routine of the asshole guard (or at least the parts where he's around her), as well as a few others that have been around. She figured out where the guard break room is after tracking the scent of coffee (which isn't served to prisoners) to a heavy metal door that required a security pass to be swiped before opening.

She's also got a vague idea of where the exit is. Lindsay was still knocked out from the nice dart to the arm she took back at OHSU when she arrived at this place, but all of the guards that are off-duty at lunch time take a left turn where she takes a right, and she can always smell the outdoors on those same guards when they come back in.

There are probably a set of keys that she needs access to. Or, really, a key card and a uniform and a lot of other things she has no way of getting to. Hiding in plain sight won't really be much of an option. She's been saving all of the plastic knives she gets at lunch, but even three of those are barely enough to give someone a little booboo. She would be better off biting and kicking and punching.

Jackson slams his hand into the bars of Lindsay's cell and rattles the metal. "Come on, little bitch! I have a schedule to keep." She climbs slowly to her feet and stretches each leg before leisurely waltzing to the guard and offering her hands to be cuffed for transport. Jackson locks them way tighter than they need to be, eliciting a small growl from the redhead. He doesn't flinch.

They walk, him with a hand wrapped painfully tight around her bicep, and her with her chin high and eyes focused, through the narrow hallways. Lindsay stays in the one-person holding cell area, but she doubts the containment is permanent. Sure, she was caught wandering around a medical facility in stolen clothing, but she hadn't technically broken any laws. Probably. OHSU was and is a medical center, and people growing freaky animal parts doesn't change that. At most, they could fine her and suspend her license or something.

But no. Solitary cell, three meals a day taken directly from the kitchen back to her cell, and no windows. Just guards and kitchen staff and apple slices and dry mac and cheese.

No Michael.

She isn't even sure if he's alive.

"Hey, Lenny." She stops just prior to the turn where she goes left and people leaving go right.

He tries to yank her forward, but Lindsay is standing with locked knees and angled feet, and this dude probably couldn't lift a twenty pound potato sack to save his life. "Come on. I don't have any fucking time for this, Tuggey."

"Jones," she hisses through gritted teeth. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on."

"What's going on?" Jackson releases Lindsay's arm and spins around to stare her down. "You will come willingly and silently to get your slop or I'll tase you is what's going on." His tail gives several long, horizontal lashes.

"I have a right to know what I'm being detained for. Tell me. Now."

He reaches for his belt and Lindsay makes her move. She pops her knees out from locking, sets her weight steadily on her left foot while raising her right, and delivers a beautiful Falcon Kick straight into Jackson's crotch. He hits the ground with a sad little wheeze. Lindsay quickly kneels down beside him and grabs the cuff keys off of his belt. She glances wildly over her shoulder and struggles with the awkward angle for a few seconds before unlocking the handcuffs with a satisfying pop.

She stuffs the key into her bra and cuffs Jackson to the small water pipe running along the wall. The redhead carefully withdraws the guard's gun, walkie-talkie, taser, and ID badge from his belt. Lindsay pops the back off of the walkie-talkie and yanks the batteries out, setting them aside and placing the radio on the ground before stomping on it a few times. She has to kind of roll him over to access the radio, but it seems that the kick was enough to completely knock him out.

She considers kicking his head for good measure but decides against it when she hears approaching footsteps in the distance. Her hearing isn't dramatically improved, but having an extra set of ears probably doesn't do anything to hurt the sense. She can hear better than most of her coworkers now, but Ray and Kdin both easily best her with their now super-human hearing.

Lindsay books it down the hall to the right. From what she can see, this hallway has a few wooden doors with nameplates on them, then takes another right turn. She runs as quietly as she can across the linoleum tiles; just because she doesn't have super-human hearing doesn't mean a different, more predatory hybrid in this place doesn't. She hits the corner and pauses to peek around. More doors. A set of elevators... A door with a staircase sign on it. If she's on the first floor, getting on the stairs would be a waste of time. Otherwise, it's a useful shortcut.

Lindsay takes the chance and bolts for the door. To her dismay, it requires a keycard. She panics until she remembers that Jackson's card is still in her bra. Prison pants don't really come with pockets, but a sports bra makes a perfect substitute. She had the gun (safety triple checked) tucked into the back of her pants Lee Everette style, and the taser clipped to the seam on her right side. Everything else went into the bra. It isn't a graceful system, but it sure as fuck works.

The glorious victory of a flashing green light on the door handle is short lived; the footsteps suddenly stop, then turn into running and cries of shock and radio crackles. Lindsay slips into the stairwell and silently shuts the door behind herself.

The indicator next to the door reads F3. The redhead takes to the concrete stairs, going as fast as she can without getting in danger of falling. Tripping and breaking off a few teeth would not be a very good plan at this point.

Halfway down the second flight of stairs, a door slams open about six stories up and rows of feet start pounding down the steps. Lindsay increases her pace, ignoring the hissy fit her lungs are throwing, and barely avoids falling down the last half-flight to the bottom. She pushes the door open as gently and quickly as possible and slips through as soon as the opening is big enough.

She looks around wildly to take in her new surroundings. Grey carpet, beige walls, fake potted plants and a water cooler- It's an... office space? Lindsay gives her head a small shake and close her eyes, drawing in the new scents and analyzing them as quickly as she can.

Ink, coffee, copier toner, dirt, and something overwhelmingly fresh to the left. She starts a slow jog down the left hall and passes several framed photos of beaches in grayscale. Yep, this is an office. At the corner (what's with all these damn tense 90 degree angles?), Lindsay looks carefully around and sees a sight most wonderful; EXIT, in glowing red letters.

She races in the direction indicated by the sign, slowing just ling enough to wonder why there are no people around. She turns a corner and nearly sobs with relief when she notes the natural light streaming from a glass door. Lindsay pushes it open and steps out into the light.


	2. Anger

Sky. Clouds. Sunlight.

Three things Michael didn't expect to see from his prison cell.

Of course he would be taken out by a little barb shot into his leg. More specifically, into his knee. Yep, Michael "Ragequit" Jones had his entire life uprooted by taking a fucking arrow to the knee. Not like he hadn't already, given that Lindsay Jones was somewhere on the planet and she had taken the name after marrying him, but the bitter anger he feels for the sheer ridiculousness of the situation burns on ever cold in his chest.

No amount of patchy blue ceiling could ever extinguish something like that. So Michael refuses to smile pretty and strike a cutesy pose and bring his cat ears away from their permanent position of flat against his curls. Fuck. This.

"Smile, Michael!"

"Fuck you," he hisses, baring his teeth and jutting his head out to the side a bit to better display the small fangs where his canines would be.

The photographer, some type of dog hybrid, sighs and peeks out from under the little curtain thing attached to the camera. After being in multiple photo shoots for Roosterteeth, Michael had considered the curtain thing to be a debunked myth spread around by children’s cartoons, but here’s this asshole sticking his mug through the crimson fabric and frowning like he had just caught Michael spitting in his food or something.

“Michael, I’m trying to help you out here, but you really aren’t doing yourself any favors.” When Michael continues to scowl at the ground, the photographer steps back from his camera and begins to casually stroll forward with his hands in his stupid khaki pockets. “Look, kid,” He stops a few feet in front of Michael, the tips of his snakeskin shoes sitting just shy of the familiar green flooring. “If I don’t send them good pictures, you’re going to get sent down to The Park.”

Michael’s head whips up. He wants to claw at his neck when the action sends the tiny bell shaking around wildly, but the bindings on his wrist don’t give any more than they haven’t for the last hour of tugging. His irritation is overridden quickly by ‘get sent down to The Park’ as it echoes mercilessly around his brain. No. No, he can’t go there. Michael absolutely cannot go to The Park. He doesn’t realize that he’s violently shaking his head until the photographer’s clammy hand lands on his bare shoulder.

“It’s not right. But I don’t really... I can’t help you unless you give me something to work with.” When Michael meets his gaze, he catches the fear and sadness in the man’s eyes. “It’s not something I want to do, but I sold my soul to this place a long time ago, and I got a kid to worry about.” He looks at the silky fabrics swathing his lower body, and down across the green screened floor to the table covered in food, bottled water, and makeup tools. Down in The Park, people are lucky to get water. Or, if what the multiple entries in the journal hidden on the underside of the third drawer down on the desk in his room is to be trusted, they can go weeks without getting anything aside from table scraps and moldy bread.

But none of that could compare to what happens to those who end up down there. Nothing could compare to what they’re... What’s done to them. Michael may seriously resent his photographer, but the guy was once in a position similar to Michael himself, and he went down there once. He hasn’t lied yet. Of that much, Michael is certain. When Lindsay had commented on him possibly having super hearing, she wasn’t really wrong; it just wasn’t in the sense that she had expected. Unless a person was actively working to keep their heartbeat steady, Michael could hear the subtle discrepancy in the beating when he was paying attention and his subject of focus fibbed.

Anything could be worse than The Park, aside from where Gavin is. Currently, Michael gets wide, sweeping windows, three square meals, and virtual freedom to do as he pleases as long as he behaves in front of the lens and doesn’t try to leave his room. Slowly, Michael scoots back on the cushion he’s seated on and pushes his chest up a bit, showing off the muscles in his shoulder and the pale flesh over his abdomen. The photographer senses the shift and hurries back to hide under the curtain. Michael silently bids the last shred of his dignity farewell and gives the camera his best sultry look.

\--

“Hey, uh...”

Shit. He doesn’t know the photographer’s name. He’s always just called him the photographer in his internal monologue, so... The guy seems to pick up on Michael’s semi-awkward distress. “Name’s Ron.”

“Ron.” Michael nods shallowly. “Uh, thanks... For being nice and warning me and stuff. Sorry for being a dick head.”

Ron smiles. “I was just like you once, Michael. Think nothing of it.”

With those words, Ron shuts Michael’s door. The cat hybrid listens as a key scrapes in the lock, then pops out with a metallic pop. He rests his head against the door and listens as Ron’s shoes click against the linoleum until he can’t hear them, no matter how hard he strains.

Slowly, Michael backs away from the door and spins around, filling his mind with the contents of his room. It’s pretty much a standard hotel room, aside from the huge dresser and full length mirror nestled beside it. He creeps slowly up to the reflective glass surface and rests the tips of his fingers against the cool surface. His wrists are angry and red from his earlier attempts to wriggle out of the bubblegum pink leather bracelets still wrapped securely around them. The metal triangle bit where someone usually attaches a clip dangles teasingly and reflects the light from the chandelier cheerily.

The bows tied around his ears are offensively hot pink. Like, bright ass, in your face, go fuck yourself pink. It hurts his eyes to look at them, so he glances down to the bullshit excuse for boxers that are made of a much kinder, matte-er pink fabric. The top is black lace and it seems like it would tear at the slightest tug. His legs are adorned with soft tight-high socks that start out light pink and slowly fade to white at the feet. He gives his tail a quick flick and sends the bell tied to the end by another offensively bright ribbon on another round of jingles.

It’s much smaller than the one hanging from his neck, though. And by extension, quieter. The one hanging from the gold-studded collar is a shiny yellow bell. It shrieks its horrible little toll with every jerk of his head, every sway in his stride. Michael’s practically given himself some kind of horrible muscle injury just trying to keep his head still the last few days.

It’s torture. Horrible, pink, soft, torture.

But rule number one was established right at the beginning.

Do not remove the collar.

Removing the collar means an immediate trip down to The Park.

A permanent one.

Resting on the pale wall that sunlight lazily hits as the star that provides life to Earth heads West (or rather, the Earth continues to rotate) is a finely embroidered list of things that Michael must be aware of, available for him to see in case he ever forgets. The thread is fine and pink layered on gold, in delicate cursive.

1\. Do not remove your collar.  
2\. Do not leave your quarters unattended.  
3\. Do not betray your duties.  
4\. The Keeper has final say.

Michael gently removes the embroidery from its spot on the wall and sits down on the bed with it propped up on his legs. And he smashes it against his head. There’s some resistance, of course, but his thick skull eventually wins out against the tightly woven material and rips right through the thing. His head stings a bit, but he doesn’t care. Michael throws the thing against the wall as hard as he can, sighing with short-lived satisfaction when the wooden frame cracks against the plaster.

The cat-hybrid flicks his tail into reach and yanks the ribbon and bell off, dropping them half-heartedly and moving on eagerly to shredding the socks. He makes short work of the delicate fabric and grins at the remnants where they lay in a pathetic pile on the carpet. Next to go are the ribbons around his ears. He stomps each of them a couple of times. The ribbons weren’t particularly irritating, but they were contributing to this... Mess. Michael pauses with his hands primed just short of the waistband of the boxers.

He doesn’t have any boxers that aren’t like this. His hands are shaking and his mind is going totally blank, filled only with the burning fury that makes his teeth clench and his heart beat heavier. A cold sweat is beginning to coat his skin. It reflects like the glass in the chandelier.

Michael ribs the boxers apart. The lace is slightly more sturdy than he expected, but they are no match for his anger in its raw form. There’s lots of ripping noises, and then he’s nude. Aside from the fucking collar and the fucking bracelets. Michael glances into the mirror and a cold determination washes over him. The redhead picks up the wire hairbrush from his desk and hurls it at the mirror.

The thing shatters into some big chunks and lots of little tiny ones. If nothing else in his little temper tantrum had, the crashing of glass would certainly alert whoever is in charge of keeping Michael from escaping. He’s got to hurry. Michael carefully tiptoes around the small chunks and selects a larger piece. He carefully slides it under the leather cuff and begins a small sawing motion. When that fails, he starts putting more pressure, unconscious of the small trickle of blood pricking from his hand.

The cuff finally gives with a snap, exposing more inflammation and friction burns. He repeats the action much less carefully on his other hand, but manages to escape any major damage. With the two cuffs lying on the ground, Michael’s last threat is the collar.

He focuses on himself in the only remaining chunk of mirror still clinging to the silver frame. His hands are one thing, but his neck is an entire other game. The cat hybrid carefully begins to work the glass under the snug fit of the collar and begins putting pressure against the fleece interior. The material is much more resistant than the cuffs were. Fucking annoying, they looked like they were made of the same thing. Though, the weird rule about not taking the collar off certainly suggested that it held more meaning than the cuffs. While there wasn’t a way for the cuffs to be removed, there wasn’t any kind of rule that told him that he couldn’t take them off if he found- or invented- a way to make that happen.

A door slams somewhere nearby. Michael furrows his brows and presses his lips together. His time is running out. He presses a bit more desperately against the unbudging leather, cursing at the sting of the glass breaking the skin on his hands. “Wrong way, fucking shithead,” he hisses.

Footsteps outside make his desperation turn into cold dread and fear. He gives one last forceful shove of the glass, crying out lightly when it cuts his hands, but yelping victoriously all the same when the collar finally gives and falls onto the floor.

There’s a knock on the door. “Michael, you okay...?” Ron’s voice.

He looks wildly around the room. Okay, he’s broken one of the only four fucking rules, and now he’s standing naked in his room with said rule enforcers just outside his door. Michael rushes to the wardrobe and yanks open a drawer, throwing on whatever isn’t pink or sheer or frilly. He beelines for the balcony, but hesitates to retrieve the journal from its hiding spot- taped to the bottom of the drawer- and tucks it into the waistband of the back of his pants before throwing open the French doors and stepping into the evening light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three days late. Not so bad.  
> Thanks to everyone who has left a comment. I really love reading what you guys have to say!


	3. Depression

Asleep and unconscious are very, very different things.

"Don't fucking touch him!" Jack's roar causes only a moment's hesitation from the guards. When they continue their careful advance, a growl rips through his throat, reverberating off of the walls of the small room. Primal instinct sinks slowly into his thoughts, shadowing over logical thinking and taking control from his hands. His claws slide out and press into his palms, forcing him to spread his hand out.

The guards wearily eye his flexing fingers. Jack widens his stance by a few inches and hunches over a bit, preparing himself for a fight. His change in posture is met with a little half step backward by the leading guard. He looks over his shoulder and says something that's garbled by the mask covering his face. Jack's tail flicks back and forth in agitation as he waits for them to make their move.

Michael stirs a bit, but remains otherwise unresponsive to the world. The small twitch of his hand distracts Jack long enough for the guards to ready their guns. The lion leaps left, barely dodging the darts the fly where his neck was moments ago. They scramble to reload, and Jack takes his chance. He leaps at the leader and takes him to the ground, smacking his mask away from his face and making long, red scratches across his cheek. His arms dart out to grip the leg of the next closest guard, sending him toppling as he tries to aid his buddy. The third guard wisely steps away, backing out of the cell and shouting something that's blocked by the damn mask.

The man that's pinned under him tries to free his arm and manages to land a kick onto Jack's back. In response, Jack punches him square in the jaw and rolls back to his feet. He kicks the guard he tripped two times; one to his ribs, one to his head. The lion turns to check on Michael. Still passed out on the floor. He makes to scoop the redhead up from the ground and carry him out while he's got an opening, but something sharp stabs his calf and he buckles.

Jack roars in frustration as he feels his control leak away for the second time. He manages to rip the barb from his skin, and then he's out of strength. The lion watches helplessly from the ground as more guards lift Michael up and carry him away.

\--

"There's an industry for pretty kitties like him. You, on the other hand, are a dangerous menace that we're paid to detain."

Jack doesn't respond. He was roused into waking by this woman's voice, and for a moment, he confused her Australian lilt for Caiti. And then she had slapped him hard across the face, and all illusions of home comfort fell apart at the seams.

"Maybe we could skin you. Make a pretty penny off of your claws, and hang you over a hearth somewhere for all to see. How's that sound?" She's smiling like it's her birthday and she was just presented with tickets to Disney world. A few seconds of silence pass, and Jack feels another sharp kick to his ribs. He wheezes from the impact. "I asked you a fucking question, cat."

Not once has she referred to him by name. "That sounds fucking awful." His voice is cracked and dry. Speaking is like rubbing sandpaper down his throat. The woman retrieves a bottle of water from the cooler beside her and takes a long drink. He watches her throat move as she swallows with burning interest. She laughs when she looks up at him, waving the bottle tantalizingly in front of his face.

"Thirsty, huh? It's pretty damn hot out here, especially right in the sunlight." She pulls the bottle away, setting it on the ground beside him. "Too bad."

Jack bites back the beg for liquids that bubbles in his throat. He refuses to show this awful person even a second of his weakness. That's what she wants. And when you're sitting pretty in a pillory, wearing nothing but boxers and with your feet bound so you're unable to move, and the sun beats down on your back and it hurts so much that you kind of short circuit, there's not a lot of ways to get your revenge on your captors. Especially not when they have guns and orders to kill unruly prisoners. He's already seen two others go down, and he's only been out here for a few hours.

Probably. It's kind of hard to keep track of time. All Jack has to work with is the movement of the sun as it sluggishly sinks across the sky. Once it leaves his field of vision, he's screwed. Not that he won't be anyway, but. You know. Once his legs collapse from exhaustion (an inevitable eventuality), he may be put in a position that would make breathing... Exceptionally difficult. His feet are trapped in place, so his legs will bend forward, but his head will be locked pressed back against the wood. If he isn't quite tall enough, his neck will be pressed against the bottom of the little circle. Hard.

Not good.

"Aww, what's the widdle kitty thinking about?" The woman leans forward, her elbows propped up on her knees, and head cradled in her hands.

Jack considers not responding, but remembers the pain that silence had brought him earlier and steels himself for forcing more words through his dry throat. "If... How long am I going to be out here?"

The woman laughs. "As long as you deserve. You did a real number on the captain's face, and he decides when you get out."

Shit, was that who he scratched? Jack sighs, wincing at the burn. He's going to die out here. He's going to die, and he's never going to see Caiti again. He's never going to see the face of his newborn child, and he's never going to grow old with the love of his life.

All because of the wings on Gavin's back. But Jack doesn't blame him. Gavin didn't choose for the feathery appendages to show up any more than Jack chose his tail or his ears.

He resigns himself to waiting out his demise in the crushing heat. Wherever he is, it's hot as all fuck. The ground is paved, which made standing on his bare feet agony at first. He can't really feel them anymore. Hasn't really felt much if the original pain in awhile. Jack wonders briefly if nerve damage is a symptom of heat stroke.

Wait. Wait a fucking second.

Jack eyes the woman carefully. Shoulder length black hair, grey eyes, pale complexion. The armor that most guards wear would be unbearable in the heat, so all of the outdoor guards are stripped to white tank tops and shorts. Her feet are kicked up on the small table beside her lawn chair.

No tail. No horns. No feathers, no fur, no anything.

"Aren't you... Where are your hybrid parts?"

Her face falls. "That's none of your damn business, cat."

After Gavin's wings sprouted, the entire planet had been turned hybrid in a matter of weeks. Even people in the most remote corners of the world were eventually made to be less than human. Every guard around has something to prove them inhuman, except for her. What happened? Was she never... Or did she lose whatever she had somehow? Jack flinches when the thought of having his ears or tail removed crosses his mind.

"Did you lose them?"

She kicks him hard in the ribs, but this time, the pain doesn't begin to fade. Every inhale becomes a fresh agony. She may have bruised or even cracked a rib or two.

"I'm... I don't know what happened to you, but I'm sorry."

She looks like she's preparing to kick him again, but she stops. Her boot hits the ground again with a heavy thunk. She mutters something and walks away, quickly leaving Jack's limited field of vision and eventually leaving his slightly unnatural earshot.

And just like that, he's alone in the sweltering heat, half naked and exhausted.

Awesome.

\--

The default ringtone of Meg's phone cuts her off mid-sentence. She looks sheepishly at the camera and stammers out the rest of her line, then pulls it out of her pocket to cut the call and silence it.

The number isn't one she recognizes, but what catches her attention is the area code. She and Griffon had studied a few things while their loved ones embarked on a crazy death mission, and area codes were one of them. The number has an Oregon code. It's unmistakable. She makes a neck slicing motion and half-jogs out of the room, pushing aside the confused crew of The Know, and heads down the fastest route to leave the building. Once she clears the studio area, she takes the call.

"Hello, this is Meg Turney."

"I only have two minutes, so I'll make it quick."

Meg freezes. The voice is unmistakable.

"There's been talk of a cure, or something... Something that's meant to erase your hybrid parts. But it doesn't work. It's a poison. Whatever you do, do not let anyone get any kind of vaccine, no matter the cost. But do not talk about it around anything with a microphone. Do you understand?"

"Y-Yes," she stammers. "But-"

"After I hang up, crush your phone. Take your memory card out first, but make sure the phone is completely destroyed. They're still looking for us."

"Uh... Okay, but-"

"I'm sorry. I'm out of time, I have to go."

"Are you safe?"

"Sort of. More than I was. I promise, I will see you again."

"Okay..." There's a brief pause. "I love you."

"I love you too, Meg. See you soon." Her phone beeps three times to indicate that the call is over. Meg stares at her home screen for a few moments, trying and failing to collect herself. Gavin sounded so... Lethargic? Off, certainly. Something about him was just not right.

She pops the case off of her phone and tucks it in her usual phone pocket, but keeps the device itself gripped tightly in her hand. She walks to the Achievement Hunter office in a bit of a daze, steadily ignoring everyone who greets her along the way. Inside, she grabs the screwdriver from where it lives on Jack's desk and takes the back off of her phone. She grabs the memory card, then drops the rest of the phone onto the carpeted floor.

She looks around briefly and comes across something that looks distinctly like a hammer stood upside down on the fanart shelf. She grabs it- The handle is painted gold, an the head is black, aside from the white inscription "Hammer of Pimps"- and hits her phone as hard as she can.

Meg spends the next several minutes completely obliterating it. Burnie wanders in after it's been reduced to dust and simply stares in confusion. She glances up at him and opens her mouth to explain before she remembers Gavin's instruction not to talk about it around microphones.

She grabs his arm and ignores his protests as she drags him outside. Meg leads him to a shady spot away from any exits and mimes holding a phone up to her ear. Burnie seems to get the picture, as he pulls his iphone out of his pocket and places it in her outstretched hand. He watches in confusion as she runs about fifty yards and sets it on one of the concrete bases of the street lamps adorning the parking lot, then runs back.

"Gavin called."

Burnie's jaw drops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my, dear readers. Oh my.
> 
> As always, I love comments. So much so that I would go as far as to encourage you to leave them! If you have anything you would like to say, I guarantee that I want to hear it. Even something completely unrelated, like what you had for lunch or what your favorite color is. Seriously.


	4. Bargaining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTICE:
> 
> The tags have been updated. This chapter has a lot of potentially triggering and/or harmful material, so please please please read them.

Give and take, give and take, give and take. Stand, sit. Eat, shit. Drink, piss. Give and take.

There are no windows in his room, but he can hear the rain pattering through the walls. Sometimes, he turns his brain off and lets the instincts he battles every other second take over for awhile. While he's off in another world of memories and emotions, the rabbit in him strips the bedding from the thick king mattress and makes a burrow beneath the dark cherrywood frame. He resides under there, tapping and tapping and tapping patterns that have no rhyme or reason into the shag carpet and ignoring the little tray of food when it scrapes across the floor through the short flap on the door. Eventually, his hands still, his eyes droop, and everything leaves him to rest in silent void.

When Ray wakes up, the conditions are always the same; the bed is made, the lamp is off, and he's wearing a new set of plain pajamas.

Without a window, or any real contact with the outside world, it's hard to keep track of time. Maybe it's minutes, maybe seconds, hours days, he isn't sure. But an amount of time passes, and a new tray slides under the door to replace the one that disappears while he sleeps.

At first, he tried to wait by the flap and call out when the tray was passed to him, but all he ever got back was fading footsteps. The tray is too low to the ground for him to see through it, but when he turns out his lamp, a small line of light always spills out, no matter what time it is.

But who even knows what time it is anymore. The one source of light in the room, a small desk lamp sitting on the bedside table, isn’t plugged into anything, but it’s been running nonetheless for however long Ray’s been in there. It’s got to be battery operated, but he can’t check to see what type it runs on; the plastic piece covering the battery ports is attached with a tiny little screw, and his nails aren’t even nearly long or sharp enough to detach it.

 

It isn’t even like doing that would help, really. They probably just replace the batteries along with his sheets and clothing. Ray tries not to shudder when he thinks about mystery hands touching his body while he’s completely unaware; he can only hope that whoever does it is a dude who isn’t in to dudes. That’s the easiest way for his brain to process it, anyway. As he found out when he used the small bathroom attached to his room after the first night, they change his boxer briefs as well.

 

There’s a constant supply of water in the form of a large dispensing cooler in the corner. The hot water tab had been completely removed from the device, probably to keep Ray from splashing his captors with boiling liquid. Of course, they would have to show their faces for something like that to happen.

 

Maybe today is the day that they will. Or... Tonight is the night? This afternoon is the afternoon...?

 

Fuck it. Ray goes back to replaying the images from some of his favorite games in his head to pass the time.

 

\--

 

“Gavin, are you sure you know where we’re going?”

 

“Yeah, I’ve totally been here before. This is right near where we stayed when The Ramseys took me along to visit! Griffon’s from here, remember?”

 

“Okay...” Lindsay bites her lip nervously. “You better be right, though.”

 

The Brit nods. “I know I am.” And it isn’t a lie. He remembers the little line of shops and the pub on the corner where they had gotten drinks after exploring the city. They talk in hushed tones and walk briskly down the shady street, watching carefully for anyone who looks suspicious, because the birdman and the woman with dog ears and a head of bright red hair are pretty easy to spot, even in bloody Portland.

 

They may have tossed Gavin aside like a used napkin after they got what they wanted from him, but Lindsay was still being hunted. They had caught a glimpse of her face on more than one local newspaper before high-tailing it the fuck out of there, and she had only been missing for a few days.

 

“How are those wings feeling?” She asks him once they’re settled into their home for the night, a small park near the edge of town and far from the nearest police station.

 

Gavin flexes the appendages and bites down a yelp when sharp pains shoot through his muscles. Lindsay narrows her eyes. “That bad, huh?”

 

“I don’t know what they bloody did, but they’re stiff as all hell now.”

 

Lindsay pats his shoulder sympathetically. “The feathers that are missing look like they’re starting to grow back, at least. So, that’s something.”

 

Gavin nods slowly. His wings fluff up and spread out subconsciously as he remembers his last week in the facility. Something about that bloody butterfly was intriguing to the researchers, and after he told them about it, they had started to take out entire sections of feathers with little to no anesthetic, and drawing blood often enough that he constantly felt dizzy. Then, he was suddenly back to his original schedule; eating with other prisoners, staying in a normal cell, even being allowed recreation hours a couple of times a week.

 

Maybe it was their way of sending one last blow to his psyche. He had met a nice lad named Dan of all things who was a huge fan of video games, and watched him talk enthusiastically about a “cure” that they were giving everyone who had been receiving chemo or experimental drugs.

 

Dan died in front of him three days after Gavin started to call him a friend. In the middle of lunch, the smallish man, no doubt just out of his teens, vomited up what looked like gallons of blood and then smack limply onto the table. He had screamed harder than any other moment in his life. Harder than when he took a frozen egg to the balls, harder than when he broke his leg in year five, harder than when he found out that he would be moving to America to work at Roosterteeth.

 

He blacked out after that, but was roused again by the guard dragging him down a hallway that he didn’t recognize. He was eventually led into what looked like a regular old nurse’s office and cleaned up by an older woman with a distinctly equine tail and flicking ears. She hadn’t said a word while she wiped away the blood and bile from his arms, chest, and face with a warm, wet rag that she had to run under the tap every few seconds. Gavin suspects that he vomited all over himself at some point during the scream, given his track record and the amount of ick on him that wasn’t mixed with blood.

 

Lindsay’s grip on his shoulder tightens suddenly, and the Brit is roused from his memories. “Gav, you’re not there. You’re sitting in this shitty, ghetto park with me, trying to pull one over on nature and not get hypothermia. Come on, you’re right here. I’m right next to you.”

 

“Uh- Shit. Shit, bloody shite anus, yes, yeah,” he trails off, looking around the quickly darkening patchy field with wide eyes. They sit in silence for a few minutes, Gavin looking around the park and Lindsay rubbing small circles into his shoulder, until the Brit breaks it with an almost inaudible “thank you.”

 

In response, Lindsay squeezes his shoulder.

 

\--

 

“Mi agua no está caliente,” Ray repeats quietly, staring at the little Styrofoam cup in his hands. After remembering hours of failed stunt jumps and collecting nuclear waste, Ray had turned to practicing his Spanish skills for something to do in the empty room. “Está frío,” he tacks on after a moment of thinking.

 

The door opens.

 

Ray is seated with his back to it, but the sound is so shocking and different from the little fwhip noise that the flap makes that he actually jumps in surprise, landing unsteadily on his feet and almost spilling over. He manages to regain his footing and can feel his ears sticking straight up as he whirls around to face whoever is entering his room.

 

“Hola, cariño.”

 

His brain just kind of... Short circuits. The sight before him is just too fucking surreal and ridiculous, so his entire mind just unplugs itself because that’s a hell of a lot more simple than dealing with what’s going on in front of him.

 

All it takes is one small step forward from the man in the doorway for Ray’s head to kick back into gear and head straight into panic mode. First of all, fucking how. Second of all, why? Third of all...

 

“What?!”

 

He grins, and it makes Ray feel sick to his stomach. “Sorry, I know you aren’t too progressed with Spanish yet. Thought you might be that far, at least.”

 

“No, I got that, asshole.” Ray shocks himself with his snappy reply. He wants to laugh. Hysteria fills his mind and colors his thoughts with a bitter-sweet aftertaste, and suddenly, his own shitty comeback is the funniest thing the Puerto Rican has ever heard. Laughter bubbles up his throat but gets stuck with the scream that formed when he saw who was at the door.

 

His grin had dropped to a small smile. “I’m sorry I’m so late. It took a while to get ahold of you, and I had to do some travelling. There’s a real high demand for cute little bunny boys, you know. I had to get a little up close and personal with a few people, but I don’t mind. I’ll go to the ends of the Earth for you. But I’m finally here, and you’re all mine.”

 

He takes another small step forward. Ray takes a big one back, and his heel hits the wall. Everything inside of him is screaming for him to run run run the fuck away and hide out in a hole or something, and his racing heart is making the blood pumping through his veins sound like a roaring waterfall.

 

“No more mean kitty boys or doggy girls, and no more angry rams or lions. Just you and me and this nice bed and no interruptions.”

 

Fuck. Fuck, of fucking course. It had crossed his mind more than once that the lovely king size bed adorned with sheets that were probably a higher thread count than what he made in a year were there for more than Ray’s own comfort, but he had always dismissed the thought quickly because... Well, because it made no sense. That kind of shit happened to teenage girls, not skinny Puerto Rican men. Besides, he had figured that they would already have sent someone in if that was why he was here. It hadn’t once crossed his mind that he might just be reserved for someone.

 

And that someone is advancing on him quickly.

 

Hawk guy is leisurely pulling at his tie, loosening the shiny material and letting it hang from his collar in two strands once it’s completely undone. His wings are tucked comfortably behind him, like he’s seen Gavin hold his own many times, but it’s still somehow incredibly threatening and sends jolts of electric fear through Ray with every step. There’s maybe four feet of distance between them, Ray’s back to the wall and the door slowly swinging shut and cutting off escape behind Hawk guy, and the Puerto Rican knows that he’s running out of time. He needs to think of a plan, and he needs to do it fast, or shit’s going to go downhill fast.

 

“Hey,” He says, raising his right arm and locking it, splaying his palm in the clearest gesture for ‘stop’ that he can think of. In the movement, his left hand shifts and he remembers the cup of water. Maybe that water is all over the floor now, but if there is a god and he is forgiving, there are still enough liquids in it to serve as a distraction. Hawk guy, to his credit, pauses mid-step and looks inquisitively at Ray. His head tilts ever so slightly to the side in a way that is... Remarkably inhuman. “You know everything about me, right?” Ray has to swallow back bile when Hawk guy just solemnly nods. “I don’t even know your name.”

 

The corner of Hawk guy’s mouth twitches. “No, I suppose not.” He straightens up and clears his throat. “My name is George. My father owns a pretty serious hardware company, so I’ve never had to worry about money. For the longest time, I had nothing to fill my time but liquor and the internet, until...” He closes his eyes, smiling and humming a bit. “I found you. From the moment I saw you, I knew you were perfect. And this whole hybrid thing is crazy and all, but you were still a perfect little kit, and I just had to make you mine. All of those politics served to be quite convenient in that regard. There’s been some serious regressions, and I wouldn’t be shocked if people were property again by the end of 2015. No matter, though; you’ll be safe with me, always.”

 

“No.” Ray swings the cup forward, sending a miraculously large cascade of water into Hawk guy’s face. In the same moment, he darts to the guy’s left and rushes past him, catching the door just before it completes its rotation and yanking it back open. The light from the next room floods into his vision and blinds him for a moment.

 

It’s just long enough for Hawk guy to recover. A large hand closes firmly around Ray’s arm and yanks him back with a yelp. He’s thrown hard against the bed; the top of the blankets scratch at his arms a bit as he skids and bounces, but offer next to no purchase at his attempts to scrabble away. The bed skins down again and Ray casts a glance over his shoulder to see Hawk guy’s knee resting on the mattress and his tie discarded on the floor. What really catches his attention though is the look in his cold brown eyes.

 

Absolute calm and collection is written across his features, but his eyes hold a dangerous sort of heat that makes Ray whimper just a bit before he can stop himself. Okay, plan one has failed. At least the guy doesn’t seem pissed enough at him to murder him or something. Murder is not how he plans on going out. There are much cooler ways, like sloth pack attacks and black holes and stuff. Not at the hands of a ripped dude with wings.

 

“Feisty. I knew you would be, of course. I just didn’t think that it would be this... Exciting.” His voice drops a solid octave at the last word, and Ray risks a short glance down and quickly regrets it when a flush spreads over his face and makes breathing a little bit difficult. He’s reminded of the urgency of the situation when the bed dips a little more to accommodate Hawk guy’s full weight, and a warm hand brushes against his ankle.

 

Okay, shit. Think, Narvaez.

 

\--

 

“Sorry, uh, have you seen a woman with shoulder length red hair and a tall, skinny British guy with wings around here?” Michael asks the same question for the umpteenth time, deflating a little bit when he gets another sad shake of a head and shrug.

 

“Not around here, I’m afraid. Perhaps they are enjoying the park? The weather today is very nice.” The woman behind the counter has a thick Russian accent and a colorful array of tattoos running down her arms to match the vibrant red tail lashing behind her. Michael shoves back a frustrated curse and trade it for a polite nod and a mumbled thanks.

 

He shuffles out of the little shop and immediately hugs his thin cardigan closer to his chest. The sun is gone behind the horizon at this point, and it’s only going to get colder. He grew up in Jersey, but living in Austin has made him soft; the unforgiving chill of northern air has him fluffing up everything he’s got in an attempt to lock in the heat. Michael wasn’t exactly focused on getting appropriate clothing for the season’s shift into colder territory when he escaped; all he ended up with is a pair of silky boxers, cargo shorts, and a thin red cardigan. He expected more weird looks than he’s gotten for the odd ensemble, but after passing a super muscular dude decked out in a frilly dress and an old woman covered head to toe in leather, he stopped questioning it and focused on sticking to the well-lit streets.

 

He wouldn’t even know who to look for if he hadn’t finally gotten a clue from a convenience store clerk who had informed him of an emaciated bird guy and a girl with red hair and dog ears who had purchased one can of Spaghettios with dirty change and everything in the ‘take-a-penny, leave-a-penny’ tray. It had been hours since they were in the little shop, but the clerk was at least able to point him in the direction he saw them head.

 

So, off Michael went, with only a sliver of hope, a lot of nausea over the experiences swirling around his mind, and the prick of fear every time a car slows down near him.

 

He takes the Russian woman’s advice, and heads for the nearby park, trusting the traffic signs to direct him. The walk is much longer than he expects, and he’s working with sore-ass bare feet and trying to dodge the random shit littering the sidewalk as well as the people that look too well-dressed for the area. More than once, he’s bolted across the street, only to find his foot bleeding a little bit with every step he takes after running over something sharp lying on the pavement.

There's an ache in his feet that sends little pains up his spine every time he takes a step. Every muscle in his body protests as he continues to trek through the city. The cold is leeching heat from his tired skin quickly, and Michael knows that he'll have to stop soon.

He's fucking exhausted. He has to find a bridge or something to sleep under, or he's going to collapse in the street. The cat hybrid trudges into a small back alley, listening with every ounce of energy he can spare for signs of danger. His drooping ears lift sluggishly from his curls to swivel about, searching out anything that isn't normal. It seems clear; just cars, doors shutting, and shuffling feet.

Michael drags some old cardboard from where it leans on a dumpster and sets up a small bed on the ground. He sits against the dark bricks and begins to nod off quickly, lulled into rest by the distant sound of cars.

"-to pull one over on nature and not get hypothermia. Come on, you’re right here. I’m right next to you.”

His eyes fly open. Michael scrabbles to his feet. Where is she, where where where is Lindsay. He takes long strides, oblivious to the pain that he earlier couldn't ignore. Getting closer, closer. Where... Where-

Bright lights flood into view on the right, and Michael barely leaps out of the way in time to avoid being flattened by a speeding car. It doesn't deter him in the slightest. The sidewalk ends abruptly and lets out to grass and sparse trees, all of which are so overgrown that you can't see through the low, interlocking branches. The cat hybrid pushes through nonetheless, hissing in frustration as the twigs and branches snag his cardigan and tail.

"What was that?" Michael speeds up just a bit when he recognizes the lilt in the male voice. His boi. His boo. They're both there.

Rustling and muffled squawks from Gavin have him full on running through the trees with little regard for the stinging lashes across his bare skin. He catches a flash of red, and then something hits him hard in the back of the head. Stars dance across his vision. Michael’s legs just... Give out. He slams into the cold earth and stares dazedly ahead, sinking away from consciousness before Lindsay’s shocked gasp and hands cupping his face can reach him.

\--

Okay, definitely not good. Not awesome, super not great, extra fucking holy shit this is bad. Hawk guy’s breath is all over Ray’s neck, and he would be trying to delete the last fifty or so seconds from his memory if he weren’t busy trying to think around the large man sucking a bruise into his neck. He’ll have to join Gavin in the land of I Made Out With A Dude Once, but the circumstances are certainly a bit different.

When Hawk guy starts biting at Ray’s collarbone, he finally manages to fight past the instincts running wild in my mind and speak. “S-Stop.”

Immediately, the man draws back and stops with his face about six inches from Ray’s. His look is completely blank, which is a hell of a lot more disconcerting than any display of emotion would be. Should be. This dude is sexing up the person he’s obsessed with, and he isn’t even blushing? Is this dude even human? Wait, no one is anymore. Fuck, Narvaez, focus!

Ray slowly draws his hands to cup the sides of Haw guy’s face, fingers curling in the hair above his ears and getting a good grip. Hawk guy’s expression softens somewhat, and Ray can feel the tense set in his shoulders relax.

Ray steels himself and head butts the dude as hard as he can, forehead to nose. Hawk guy lets out an indignant cry, and Ray pushes past the stars in his eyes and rolls off of the bed, landing hard on his knees. The thin pajamas do next to nothing to soften the blow, but Ray isn’t especially worried about the state of his knees; mostly, he’s concerned with getting to the door before Hawk guy recovers.

Ray just barely gets a grip on the door knob before something wraps around his ankles and sends him sprawling out the door and flat on his face. Outside, linoleum illuminated by iridescent eyesores hanging from the ceiling paint a very confusing image. He doesn’t have time to ponder it, though; the hand around his ankle has been joined by one circled around his calf, and he’s being dragged back inside.

He tries to catch a grip on the doorframe, the carpet, anything, but Hawk guy’s massive muscles are clearly not for fucking show. About halfway back into the room, Ray flips himself onto his back and immediately takes back his thoughts earlier of wanting some display of emotion from the man. The vexed press of his brows and the set line of his lips are much more intimidating than a blank canvas. The blood dripping from his nose and a small split in his lower lip is very satisfying, in a horribly temporary way.

Something primal seizes control of Ray’s free leg. He yanks it up so hard that he nearly knees himself in the chest, and delivers the strongest blow he can muster from the awkward angle straight to Hawk guy’s face. The man recoils, releasing Ray’s leg to clutch at his chin while the Puerto Rican drags himself backward as quickly as his adrenaline-charged muscles will take him.

Hawk guy looks up slowly, and for a moment, Ray is frozen. Instead of a trickle of blood, his nose is completely out of place and kind of flopping to the side. Blood is gushing from it like... Like something that gushes, fuck, he doesn’t know. He’s too disturbed by the dude’s nose to come up with a suitable metaphor at the moment. The little gash on his lip has also expanded into something much, much worse. Fucking gross, holy shit, Ray did that. There’s probably blood all over his foot now, too.

Hawk guy reaches behind his back and Ray’s blood goes cold when the man pulls something distinctly gun-shaped from some bullshit pocket dimension behind him. Then he’s staring down what is definitely a real lethal gun, and only one thought remains while the rest of his brain critical fails:

I am so fucked.

\--

“Jesus, Lindsay. He’s out cold.” Gavin mumbles, clutching nervously at Michael’s bicep.

Lindsay nods slightly. “Yeah, I definitely knocked him out. Damn.”

Gavin nods solemnly. The darkness is once again dominated by rustling leaves and wind. He shivers slightly at the cold breeze and draws his wings around his body to help shield against the intrusion. Lindsay shoots him a strange look then shakes her head and looks away.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just had a dumb idea, is all.”

“I’ve been told that I am very good with dumb things.”

Lindsay cracks a smile at his comment and sighs before speaking up. “I’m fucking freezing my ass off, and there’s no way that Michael isn’t. I mean, this shirt is super thin, and parts of him are cold to the touch. I was just thinking that maybe you could use your wings to-”

Gavin uncurls one of the wings around him and spreads it around Lindsay. He splays the other around Michael, letting the tips of his feathers brush against those of his other wing, effectively creating a cocoon of body heat.

“Thank you,” she murmurs. Michael stirs the slightest bit, reaching out and gently grabbing a handful of Gavin’s feathers to pull his wing up to his chin. Gavin smiles softly.

They’re alive. They’re bloody alive. Meg is fine and warned, and the two next most concerning people in his life are right in front of him, proven alive. What he would give to ensure the safety of the other hunters, though... Really, what he wouldn’t.

Gavin would sacrifice himself six times over to promise a good ending to the unknown fates of the Achievement Hunters.

But this isn’t a game of What If, and Geoff is nowhere near him with his vaguely-alcoholic scent and snide remarks. All he’s got is Lindsay and Michael and everything on their backs, and nothing more. Certainly, if the universe were looking to do him any more favors today, it would give him a sign of everyone else’s safety.

But as kind as the universe has been to Gavin Free, it is not prone to working miracles.

\--

The soft pajama shirt hits the carpet with a little fwoosh. Hawk guy does a cursory glance of Ray’s now-exposed chest and nods slightly in approval. The rabbit hybrid’s hands shake as he plays with the button on the pants, trying to delay what’s coming next as long as possible. Hawk guy has won, and Ray’s fresh out of ideas; there is no more escaping.

Just a really crazy ripped guy with a gun.

“Stand up.” The Puerto Rican stands nervously from the edge of the bed where he had been seated before. Hawk guy seems to consider something for a moment before continuing on. “I think those pants would look better on the floor.” Ray takes his cue and gulps in as much oxygen as his lungs can take without bursting to hold back the heaving sobs demanding to be set free. He pops the button on the pajamas and slides the elastic down his thighs, each inch of exposed skin burning under Hawk guy’s scrutiny.

About halfway to his knees, the man’s hands close around his, and Ray whimpers. The gun is cold against the sensitive skin of his legs, but his attention goes elsewhere very fast when Hawk guy’s hot breath hits his inner thighs.

This is really serious and actually happening. Ray is about to...

Hawk guy is distracted with biting his skin. The gun hangs loose and lazy in his left hand. Ray watched him turn the safety off, so all it would take...

Before he can consider the possible moral implications, Ray’s will to survive takes control of his left hand, ripping it out from Hawk guy’s grip and darting tot eh gun. He’s only got this split second of surprise until the man reacts, and he will be overpowered if it comes to that. The planets must have lined up perfectly with Earth and the moon, because when Ray lifts his hand up, he’s got the barrel of the gun in a death grip.

The next several seconds pass faster than such a long amount of time could ever be thought to take. First, Hawk guy’s hand futilely grasps empty air. Next, Ray flips the gun around in his left hand and grabs the handle with his right. Then, Hawk guy’s semi-rough grazing of teeth turns into blinding pain against his tight. Finally, Ray presses the barrel of the gun against slick black waves and pulls the trigger over and over until the barrel is empty.

Fuck.

\--

“Holy shit, Linds. How the fuck did you escape?”

“Bitches ain’t shit.” She smirks and shrugs.

“God, you’re such a badass. I fucking love you so much.” Michael cups her face and crashes their lips together, reveling in the comfortable familiarity of the action. Sweet baby deer jesus, it feels so nice to kiss his fucking wife. Neither of them have their wedding rings, but the cat hybrid doesn’t really care. They break apart to breath and jump at the sudden burst of sound mere moments after they pull back.

More sounds, like distant popping, fill the night.

“Were those fireworks? Is bloody America day already?” Gavin whispers harshly once the sound lets up.

“Fireworks echo.” Lindsay replies quietly.

“Those were gunshots.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends Hawk guy.
> 
> Special thanks to Alan_None. They know why. ;)
> 
> If you feel I did not adequately cover the crazy shit in this chapter, please let me know in the comments (or if you are more favoring of anonymity, you can message me on tumblr at kingvav.tumblr.com/ask), and I will be sure to update the tags. It is my top priority to ensure the comfort of readers, so please, do not hesitate to tell me.


	5. ...

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

“If you kick that pebble one more time, I swear I will pee on you in your sleep.”

A defeated sigh. “What the fuck am I supposed to do to pass the time?”

“Dude, I don’t fucking know. Count sheep or something.”

“That’s for when you’re trying to sleep.”

“Sleeping is something to do, Denecour!”

“But the beds are so lumpy!”

“THAT’S WHY YOU COUNT SHEEP, DUMBASS!” Kdin forces himself to take deep breaths through his nose. His fingers slowly release his hair, slightly alleviating the sharp sting in his scalp from tugging at the brown locks.

Caleb sinks to the floor, abandoning the little rock where it sits in the middle of the cell. “I’m going to fucking go insane in here, I just know it.”

Kdin nods slowly, closing his eyes and sighing breathily. “This shit isn’t legal.”

“Neither was breaking into a government medical building, but that’s what we did.”

“Technically, we didn’t break into shit. We just kinda walked through some doors.”

“By that logic, you could stab someone multiple times, and it wouldn’t be your fault because they were in the way of your random knife thrusts.”

“Whatever, dude. All I know is that I haven’t gotten my phone call, no one has told us what we’re being charged with, and I don’t see any goddamn lawyers around here.”

“I’m pretty sure most of the human rights laws kinda flew the coop when people started growing freaky-ass animal parts,” Caleb reasons.

Kdin nods again. God, how the world had gone to shit.

A door opens and closes, and then there’s an officer with a huge lizard tail opening their cell door and gesturing for them to leave. “You’re being released.”

The two men stare incredulously at him.

“You’re being released,” he repeats. They scramble out of the cell and follow him to the reception area, where they sign a thick stack of paperwork that neither man has the temperament to read through. Then, they’re standing outside of the jail, barefoot, broke, and without phones.

“What the fuck happens now?” Caleb scratches the back of his head anxiously.

Kdin watches a large truck attempt to maneuver through the packed streets. A group of girls, all bearing brightly colored wings, sprint across the street, forcing the truck driver to slam on their breaks. Both men flinch slightly at the loud screech of rubber.

“I guess we start walking.”

\--

Nestled somewhere in the miles and miles of humid farmland of Georgia is a small ranch house with wind chimes hanging from the front rafters and a doorbell that plays a short biblical tune. Past the faded white door is a small entryway with old oak floors and a wall filled with pictures of men and women bearing a relatively similar set of physical characteristics and a wide range of ages. Through the entryway and to the right is a single step into a little sunken living room with a big circular rug and two large rocking chairs. Between the chairs is a navy blue corduroy loveseat that is occasionally home to an old golden retriever who lazily responds to “Annabelle”.

Annabelle is instead napping leisurely on one of the rocking chairs, for someone else occupies the worn-down couch. James Ryan Haywood shivers beneath a thick quilt, despite the worryingly high fever his body is running. An old woman in a gold nightgown gently brushes the hair from his face and strokes his scalp.

He opens his eyes slowly, squinting against the low natural light and groaning. “S’going on?” He slurs thickly.

The woman shushes him, then helps him to sit up. She presses a cold glass of water into his hands and helps him lift it to his lips. He drinks the precious liquid back greedily and thoughtlessly until there’s no more. “Drink it all now, James,” She whispers as he does, rubbing his back.

“Thank you...” He whispers as she takes the glass away and sets it off to the side on the small coffee table.

“You’re welcome, dear.”

There’s a pause.

Ryan runs a shaking hand through his hair. He knows that the situation is strange, but his foggy brain is refusing to think critically. He knows the room, and the couch, and the woman in the golden nightgown- But he hasn’t seen them in what feels like a very long time, and he isn’t really sure why.

The woman lightly clears her throat. “How are you feeling?”

“Groggy. A little confused, and cold. I don’t feel right.” The drawl in his words sneaks in completely undetected as his subconscious matches his speech patterns to those so familiar to his past.

“Do you know where you are, James?”

Ryan looks around again. “I’m at my grandmother’s house, in Georgia.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

He looks at the woman curiously, and the sudden revelation of who she is has him feeling more than a little bit embarrassed and ashamed. “G-Grandmother.”

She smiles warmly at him.

“It’s been so long. I haven’t seen you since I was a child.”

She reaches up and brushes the stray hairs that flopped onto his forehead back to the top of his head. Her fingers ghost against the base of his horn as she does so, and that simple sensation opens the floodgates of logical thinking.

“You’re-” He shakes his head. “I’m hallucinating. Or dreaming.”

“You’re very sick,” His grandmother murmurs.

Ryan can’t bring himself to meet her eyes now that he knows he’s just talking to a recreation of his memories. His real grandmother has been dead for many years, after a painful spiral of alcoholism following the death of his grandfather. Where he is outside of this dream world is still a mystery, but Ryan know that he needs to wake up.

“Are you sure you want to leave now?” His grandmother responds to his thoughts seamlessly.

“Yeah. I think I’m supposed to be doing something important right now.”

“My little James, always so brave and wise.” She kisses the top of his head, next to his left ear. “Your grandfather and I miss you very much, but we are so proud of you. Go on and share your greatness with the world. It needs you right now.”

He blinks, and new light floods his vision. It’s bright- too fucking bright, hurting his head, ow. Ryan squints until his vision adjusts. He’s lying on the floor facing a plain white wall. A bright-ass LED hangs from the ceiling uncovered. The floor is linoleum and there is no bed of any kind in the room, or really much of anything at all, save the row of (empty) shelves on the wall behind him. There’s a door on one side of the little room. Ryan drags himself to his feet, using the shelves for support when his legs buckle under his weight.

It’s locked-Of course it is- and the keyhole is on his side. Ryan sits down against the back wall and stares at the door while he thinks. There’s no way for sure to know how long he’s been in the closet, or how long he’s been without water. His body is doing pretty much anything it can to communicate to him that he needs hydration desperately, but there’s little to nothing that he can do to absolve the issue. Sweat is rolling off of him in waves. The space is more hot than Georgia on a bad day; it may be insulated.

He’s absolutely exhausted, and he really isn’t sure why. The last thing he remembers is being stuffed into a truck with Jack and Michael, and then the anesthesia really kicked in. His hands are shaking pretty violently and his lips are chapped to hell. There’s a discontent feeling just on the border of pain hovering around his stomach, and to top it all off, an intense burning in his throat.

Fucking hell. Ryan isn’t a medical professional of any kind- he’s a fucking theatre major, for Christ’s sake- but he knows that if he doesn’t get out of the closet and to some water and medical care, he’s going to be in trouble real soon.

He places a flat palm against the surface of the door and then knocks his fist into a couple of times, trying to get an idea of the thickness. It doesn’t seem too heavy, so there’s a chance that it’s hollow on the inside. That would be awesome. Ryan stands once more, keeping his back to the wall, and steels himself. Then, he raises his knee up as high as he can and throws his weight into slamming his foot against the spot right beside the doorknob. The lock yields instantly to his kick, sending the door smashing open and Ryan stumbling forward.

He knows he has to act quickly, but his body doesn’t seem to think as much. After some rather forceful convincing, he manages to stand once more and look around the space he’s spilled into. It’s a hallway that looks and smells like a school. Specifically, a high school. There’s more linoleum covering the floor and the opposite wall is covered from top to bottom with garish green lockers. Why the fuck is he in a high school?

What purpose does holding him here have?

Ryan can’t see any windows from where he’s standing, so he picks a direction at random and begins quietly walking, listening warily for the sounds of opening doors or footsteps. The lockers continue down the right wall for the length of the hall. The left wall is interrupted occasionally by doors with darkened windows that Ryan assumes lead to classrooms. The place seems pretty damn abandoned, aside from the lights being turned on pretty much everywhere. He follows a few more hallways until he comes across a staircase going down. He quickly descends the steps.

They let out into another goddamn hallway, but this one has windows. Outside, the sun is blazing down on a concrete patio and a large (mostly empty) parking lot. Beyond that are lots of pine trees. From this window, he cannot see the exit of the parking lot. To the left is a dead end. To the right are more lockers and several sets of huge grey doors. He tests one of the large doors, and it opens easily. Beyond it is what he reasons to be the cafeteria in the few seconds he has before one of the fifty or so guards is pointing a gun at his chest and demanding that he stay still.

Ryan easily complies. The man jumps up from the table where he sits with a few other guards and grabs a hold of his arm, keeping the gun pressed insistently against the back of his head. He’s walked back through the grey doors and down the hallways. He tries to keep track of the turns they’re taking, but his feverish mind and the panic of having a gun pressed to his head make it beyond impossible to keep the order straight.

They walk for a long time. Ryan starts to seriously question the architect of this high school. There’s barely any windows, and it’s fucking huge. Clearly larger than is really necessary to house a couple thousand teenagers. And what in the hell is up with the barren walls and bright green lockers? That’s just not classy in the slightest. It seems incredibly 1980’s.

Ryan is pushed through a door that leads outdoors, and instantly wishes he were back in the sweet air conditioning that was maintained inside of the building. It has to be upwards of 100 degrees out here. He’s lead down a concrete path through what was probably supposed to be a garden, and into another vast parking lot lined with trees. This one is different, though; it’s filled with pillories.

Guards lounge in the shade provided by the edge of the building, while countless men in nothing but boxers are forced to hunch into the wooden contraptions, many with their legs resting directly on the sizzling pavement. The man guiding him gestures for him to start undressing, and Ryan finds himself praying for the first time since he was a child.

\--

“She doesn’t have any hybrid parts, and when I asked her about it she got all weird.” Jack whispers under the din of the room. Ryan crinkles his brow and shoots him a skeptical look over his sad excuse for a ham sandwich.

“They could just be gross.” The steer suggests.

“I suppose that’s true... I don’t know. I’m just trying to find something that isn’t ridiculously depressing to talk about.”

“Alright. I’ll entertain it, then. Suppose she doesn’t have any hybrid parts. Why could that be?”

“Well... It’s kind of hard to make a call on that, given how little we actually know about what’s been going on.” Jack’s tail swishes around, stirring stray crumbs and dust up.

“You know, I’ve given that some thought, and I have some interesting observations to share. These specific observations mainly pertain to one subject of inquiry, but that’s something, right?”

Jack abandons his “sandwich” on the table and leans forward a bit, angling his ears forward to make sure he catches every detail.

“Who out of all of us changed first?”

“That would be Gavin.”

“Right, and who came after that?”

“Uh, Michael, I think. A couple of weeks after we found out about Gavin.”

“Yes... And then it was Ray, then you, then me, then Geoff.”

“Okay...” Jack prompts him, unsure of where the blonde is going with this.

“With the only possible inconsistency being Geoff, that follows the exact sequence of our first time touching Gavin’s wings.”

“How the fuck do you remember that?”

Ryan shrugs. “I just kinda... do.”

And when he thinks about it, Jack remembers, too. Like, freakily clearly. He remembers the sleek quality of the feathers, the way the muscles twitched under his gentle inspection, and the looks of amazement and shock on everyone’s faces. “So we changed in...”

“The order of contact.”

“Except for Geoff?”

Ryan’s expression falls a bit. His left ear gives a little flick. “Possibly. I don’t actually know whether or not that was Geoff’s first time touching Gavin’s wings, so I really can’t say.”

Jack hums quietly. A loud whistle rings through the cafeteria. The other prisoners immediately stand and begin walking to the set of large grey doors. Jack stands, as well, and gestures for Ryan to follow him. They walk up to where the crowd has formed into a neat, single file line, and take their places.

The line moves at a near unbearably slow pace. Wait fifty seconds, shuffle forward one spot. Repeat. There is no sound but the humming of the air conditioning and the rustle of fabric from the guards’ uniforms. Not a single person in the line makes any attempt to communicate with anyone around them. Ryan hasn’t actually been acquainted with the rules of this place, but from the way everyone is slumped and silent in their stewing defeat, he can guess pretty easily that they must be strict.

After what feels like an eternity, Ryan reaches the front of the line. A woman with a thick horn protruding from her forehead gives him a quick onceover. “Size?”

“Uh... Medium?”

She nods, and the man beside her hands him some article of clothing made of a cheap, scratchy material. Ryan isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do now, so he follows the man with wispy feline ears down a hallway. Armed guards are dotted along its length, but not a single one of them pays him any mind, so he must be going the right way. The man turns a couple of corners, then walks through the only open door Ryan has seen in the whole building into a large classroom.

Wrestling mats are set up along the floor. Several men are already passed out, some resting against the counters lining the room, and others curled up into balls around themselves. All of them are wearing the clothing in Ryan’s hands- A pair of cheap exercise pants. He hurries to pull them out and stake an empty spot for himself away from the more... Burnt folks. They’re probably a lot closer to crazy than he’s comfortable with.

Jack enters the room half a minute after Ryan, and quickly heads over to sit beside him. At his arrival, one of the two guards in the room shuts the door and leans beside it, leaving one hand resting casually on the gun holstered at his side. The room remains quiet. After several beats of listening to raspy breathing and shuffling, Ryan leans over and whispers to Jack.

“What’s happening?”

“They’re doing roll call. Twenty five people to a room, a certain amount of rooms filled total, and any extras. After they get the all clear, those guards will lock us in for the night. They’ll come get us in the morning for breakfast.”

“What happens after that?”

Jack purses his lips. “If you’ve been bad, you go outside. If not, I’m not sure.”

Ryan can’t help but smile a bit. “Have you been an ornery boy, Jack?”

The lion grins sheepishly. “I may have scratched the shit out of the general’s face trying to keep them from taking Michael.”

Ryan’s smile falters at the mention of the other man. “Is he here?”

“No, I don’t think so. The woman... The human one, she said there was an ‘industry’ for his kind of hybrid, or something.” His tone is rather grim.

Ryan hopes that wherever he is, he’s doing better than he and Jack are. He supposes that conditions could be much, much worse, but things here are not exactly ideal.

A burst of static from one of the guards’ radios followed by a crackling voice makes Ryan jump. The guards nod and exit the room, pushing the door shut behind them. He hears a key scrape against the lock for a few seconds, and then it’s quiet again. Most of the other men in the room are already asleep, but Ryan doubts he’ll be able to make it even a second with the awful fluorescents streaming bright light directly onto him. He’s an insomniac as is.

Jack begins to snore lightly beside him.

\--

“Oh my god, Geoff!” Meg shouts. She surges forward to wrap him into a hug, squeezing him violently until he makes a noise of protest and starts pushing her back. She quickly steps away from him, and finally notices the bruises and scrapes littering his body. He’s in pretty bad shape, overall; his clothes are torn and dirty, his eyes are accompanied by dark bags, and his mustache is sad and drooping. “What happened..?” She asks in a more gentle tone.

“The bears didn’t expect an army man. That’s what happened. Where is my wife?” Meg blinks at the flat tone taking the place of his usual vibrancy.

“She’s out buying food. Should be back in an hour or two.”

“Can you call her? They took my phone.” He sounds as tired as he looks. Meg bites her lip as Geoff flops backward onto the living room couch.

“Well, no. I don’t actually have... a phone.”

His expression is one of pure ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ “Yes you do.”

“I smashed it.”

“You... Smashed it.”

“Yeah.” She crosses her arms and glances around the room, even though she and Griffon have scoured the house five times over for anything that had a microphone. Can’t be too safe. “I had to destroy it. Gavin called me.”

“Gavin?” His eyes open a fraction of an inch wider. “You heard from him? Is he okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine. But we may not be.” Geoff opens his mouth to respond, but Meg holds up a finger and he waits. “The scientists were apparently trying to develop a cure of some kind to... Destroy all hybrid parts, I guess? But Gav said it’s a poison, and we have to keep as many people as possible from taking it.”

“I’ve seen the advertisements for it, actually. I wasn’t sure what it was. That’s fucked up.” Geoff begins to fidget with the tips of his curled horns.

“Yeah, and all Americans are required to have been vaccinated by next week. That’s why Griffon’s at the store; she’s buying canned food and water with a bunch of other RT people, and we’re all going on the lamb. We were actually planning on heading toward Portland to try and rescue you guys.”

Geoff nods slowly and stares straight ahead, looking deep in thought. Meg silently goes to the kitchen and gets him a tall glass of water. He looks surprised when she sets it down on the table next to him, but he’s downed the whole thing half a minute later. He rasps his thanks and sinks right back into his thoughts. Meg sighs and goes to refill his drink.

Geoff is okay. Geoff is alive and well. Most of the others probably are, too. They’re all adults capable of taking care of themselves, just as he had. They’re fine. 

They have to be.

Geoff is fast asleep when Meg returns with his refill. She gently places the glass on the table, then returns to what she had been doing before he broke in through the kitchen window: reading the zombie survival guide that Griffon had handed her before embarking on her journey to the store.

She knows it’s silly, but the book actually has some fairly sound advice for surviving when any unfamiliar human can be your enemy. She’s already picked up quite a few basic survival tips that she never needed to know in braving the concrete jungle of Los Angeles. Besides, it’s better than sitting around doing nothing at all; time is critical, and any second wasted could be the difference between life and death.

Griffon arrives around an hour after Geoff arrived. The second the door opens, Geoff sits bolt upright and jumps up from his seated position to race toward the entryway. Meg waits patiently for them to finish saying hello before going to help drag in the paper sacks filled with stacks of canned soup, vegetables, broths, and everything else that can conceivably be stuffed into a metal cylinder.

The three of them work methodically to stack the food into the spare luggage that had been up in the attic, sorted carefully by expiration date. It takes a solid couple of hours to complete the task, and by the time they’re done, the suitcases are almost impossible to lift. With some solid elbow grease and a fair share of cursing from Geoff, they’re able to transport the suitcases into the back of Griffon’s carving van.

“So, what now?” Geoff grunts as he stretches out his arms.

“We’re waiting on Burnie, Gus, and Blaine.” The pager on Griffon’s belt chimes. She glances down at it, then back up at Geoff. “Make that Burnie and Gus. Blaine has apparently finished filling Chris’s car with as much protein powder as he can fit in it.”

Geoff shakes his head, but Meg doesn’t miss the small smile on his face. “Those assholes better hurry up. We’ve got shit to do.”

\--

“Is that everyone?”

“No, we still haven’t heard from Miles.”

“Someone get ahold of Miles! We need to get the fuck out of dodge in the next ten minutes!”

Arryn bursts into the room, dragging a very sleepy Miles loaded down with three backpacks and a purse behind her. “Sorry! We’re here!”

“Okay. Great. That’s everyone.” Griffon calls as she crosses the last names off of her list. “Drivers, are you all ready to go?”

A chorus of affirmatives fill the room.

Geoff smiles. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, then. Everyone to your assigned vehicle! Do not lose your pagers!”

In the lot outside are a myriad of vans and trucks, all filled with as many supplies as they could possibly fit inside. Every car is equipped with an old GPS system set up to direct them toward Portland, Oregon.

The plan is simple: Find the other achievement hunters, load them into whatever vehicle has space (they had already accounted for the difference, so there were exactly enough seats open), and get as far away from civilization as possible. The ‘cure’ was already infecting people with what doctors were calling a ‘viral hemorrhagic fever’ at an alarming rate, but it wasn’t being linked to the vaccine yet. Perhaps it never will be.

But they aren’t planning on being around to find out; regardless, it would be too late.

\--

“Since when can you fucking pickpocket people?” Michael hisses.

Kdin shrugs. “Just something I picked up.” He smirks and rifles through the wallet, coming up with several 20’s. Lindsay high-fives him.

“Is that gonna be enough for all of us?” Caleb asks after the celebration dies down a bit.

“I sure hope so. The dude had, like, $200.”

“Do you not feel bad at all about stealing his money?” Michael asks, a bit incredulously.

“Nah,” Kdin replies. “We saw him catcall a few girls. Like, young girls. Fucker deserved it.”

Michael nods, placated.

“What’s on the menu, then?” Lindsay asks, slinging an arm around Kdin’s shoulder and grinning.

“I saw some food carts a few blocks over,” Caleb suggests. They all nod and start walking in the direction he pointed. It took him a few moments to notice, but he eventually realized that Gavin and Ray were lagging behind a bit. Michael fought the urge to shoot worried glances over his shoulder.

When they had found Ray- Or rather, when he had found them- He was a mess. Shaking, covered in blood, and barely responsive, along with unable to communicate to them what exactly had happened to him. All they had managed to get out of him was that he wasn’t hurt. The next morning, after he had gotten a bit of sleep, he seemed much more lucid, but it only pushed him further into his silent corner. He adamantly refused to talk about it or even acknowledge that something had happened at all. The most they could get him to do was change into the shirt Lindsay was wearing, while she kept her coat.

Gavin too had been bizarrely quiet all throughout their journey, but at least Michael had some semblance of an idea of why that may be. Being in the dark drove him crazy; if he didn’t know what was wrong, he had no was to help. But, for now, it would seem that neither man is particularly willing to share their experiences with the rest of the slowly-expanding group.

For now, he keeps his ears swiveled backward as subtly as possible and makes sure that they don’t fall too far behind. Lindsay, being as carefully observant as she is, picked up on his quiet focus almost immediately, and sent him a curious glance as they walked. After checking to make certain that Caleb and Kdin were still chattering between themselves-arguing about whether Ultimate Frisbee should be an Olympic sport- he glances pointedly to the right and shifts his head back a bit, indicating the pair behind them. Her confusion melts into concerned understanding, and she nods.

They arrive at a damp street lined with an array of trucks, all selling strongly-scented varieties of meats. Caleb rushes up to one that advertises chicken on a stick and begins frantically ordering. Michael rolls his eyes and begins glancing around for something to catch his interest.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re all seated at a picnic table in the small adjacent park, chewing away at their respective food and reveling in the flavors.

“Best damn pulled pork I’ve ever tasted,” Kdin practically moans around a mouthful of the stuff.

“Wish it wasn’t so cold out.” Caleb tacks on between bites.

“You two sound like NPCs.” Michael snorts. Kdin nearly chokes on his food from his snorting laughter, and Lindsay begins to giggle furiously at his hacking.

The tension in their shoulders begins to melt away with hot food entering their bodies. Michael’s hunk of meat tastes like cardboard soaked in shitty barbeque sauce, but he couldn’t care less; it’s hot, it’s food, and it’s worlds better than the food he was eating back at the photography place, because he’s eating it as a free man. 

“Gavin, you’re being awfully quiet,” Kdin mumbles through another mouthful.

In a word, he looks alarmed. His feathers, or what remain of them, fluff up a bit, and his posture becomes more restricted and defensive. “Don’t really feel like talking.” He says quietly.

Kdin opens his mouth to respond, but Lindsay cuts him off. “Let him be.” He stares at her for a second, then flicks his bat ears and goes back to decimating his pulled pork sandwich.

\--

When the guards reentered the room, the sun had not yet risen, and Ryan had not slept. The sky outside is a faint, pale blue, so he knows it must be at least close to dawn, but there are still plenty of stars out in plain sight. He wonders if this is when the prisoners are usually woken.

Their confused grumbling and startled stares at the shouted awakening from the guards tells him otherwise.

Jack looks around in confusion as well, yawning and revealing sharp canines before scratching at the base of his mane-beard and blinking heavily.

“None of you are going outside today.” The room visibly perks up a bit at the announcement.

“You’re getting shots.” The other guard follows.

“Shots?” Ryan whispers. Jack shrugs.

They’re lead back out into the cafeteria, and into four orderly lines leading up to little stations that have been sectioned off from the rest of the room with white curtains. Jack and Ryan end up near the middle of the line, which gives Ryan plenty of time to wonder what the hell is going on before their turns eventually arrive. He watches carefully as a man with impressive horns enters the station, then leaves looking much more pale and clutching weakly at the band aid on his left arm.

That... Is not normal.

He watches the same thing happen several more times, then decides that he definitely does not want whatever is in the vials to enter his body. He’s considering possible escape routes when a skimpy ram gives a loud shout and comes dashing out of one of the stations, running frantically away. A guard guns him down before he makes it ten yards. Ryan flinches when the gun fires, and has to force himself to look away from the crumpled corpse leaking blood all over the cafeteria linoleum.

In what feels like seconds, it’s suddenly his turn to enter the station, and his stomach begins doing unpleasant flips like it used to before childhood visits to the dentist. On the other side, a man in a lab coat and white latex gloves grabs his arm and sits him down in the plastic chair off to the side, then turns and begins rooting through a box of supplies behind him.

“Um, what am I being injected with?” He asks nervously.

The man grunts and says nothing. He turns back around with a syringe and a vial of something clear. He begins to load the syringe without even bothering to clean Ryan’s arm with an alcohol swab or something.

“I’m not letting you touch me until you tell me what that is,” he warns, tilting his head down slightly to make his horns appear a bit more prominent.

“Nothing you need to worry about, cow.” The man responds gruffly as he begins to approach.

Ryan stands violently, sending the chair skittering backward, and stares at the man threateningly. He seems unfazed.

“I would suggest you sit.”

 

“No.”

He narrows his eyes. “Sit and cooperate, or I have the guards come take care of you.”

“No.” Ryan snaps, swinging his arm around and knocking the vial and syringe out of the man’s hand. The former shatters loudly, and all of the chattering from the guards cuts off.

Well. He’s made his move. Ryan knows that he’s committed, and must now continue acting on this line of action, or he’ll likely be killed without a second thought. Just minutes ago, the ram man hit the floor... He can’t help but wonder if he’s going to be like him in a few seconds. All he can do is defend himself and pray that the answer is no.

He head-butts the man, sending him sprawling backward. He trips over the supply box and topples over; his head slams into the ground with a mighty crack. Ryan takes a deep breath and springs out of the station, grabbing the nearest guard and ripping the gun from their hands. He pulls them into a tight headlock and presses the barrel of the weapon into their head, keeping his back to the wall and using him as a shield from the other guards.

They all start glancing around at one another with something akin to uncertainty. Ryan realizes after a moment that the man he grabbed had a different kind of body armor on... And three diagonal lines across his face.

He grabbed the fucking captain.

“Nobody move!” Ryan shouts, using his best confident projection voice. He glances over at Jack a few times before the other man gets the hint and runs to stand behind him. Slowly, Ryan starts dragging the captain backward, making his way slowly toward the bank of glass doors leading outside.

The guards move out of the way, seemingly uncertain about what to do. Every time one of them looks like they might move, Ryan shoves the gun a little harder into the captain’s head, making him grunt and setting the guards straight.

He huffs a silent breath out of his mouth when his back hits the glass. Jack pushes the door open, letting them out into the parking lot. The sun has risen, and the air is warm. It smells like strongly of pine.

“Got a car, captain?”

The man wriggles a bit and scowls. Ryan nudges him with the gun again. He curses under his breath. “Red Honda Accord.”

“Keys?”

“Front left pocket.”

“Jack,” Ryan says apologetically. The lion reaches into his pocket and fishes out a set of keys. He presses the unlock button, and a car to their right lights up and clicks unlocked. Ryan glances at him and jerks his head toward the passenger seat. Jack rushes over, pulling the door open easily and slipping inside. Ryan throws the captain to the ground, kicks him in the head as hard as he can, and races to the driver’s side door.

The windows on the doors to the school shatter as a hail of bullets fly toward them. Ryan starts the car and floors it, barely avoiding slamming into a minivan, and turns hard into the exit street. After several minutes of going way too fast down a forested hill road, they emerge at what appears to be a small town.

Ryan picks a direction at random and starts following the empty streets while Jack fiddles with the built in GPS system. Eventually, it boots up, and he must have entered in a destination, because the system starts talking through the car stereo.

“Starting route. Destination: Portland, Oregon. Distance: 277 miles. In half a mile, turn right onto South Royal Avenue.”

Two... Two hundred seventy-seven miles. “Where the hell are we?”

“Eagle Point, Oregon. We’re an hour from California.”

“Fuck.”

\--

“Oh shit, it’s Ryan and Jack!”

Michael sprints forward, nearly tackling Jack to the ground of the 7-11 parking lot. “Thank god, you’re alright!” The lion cries out, hugging Michael tightly. Lindsay rushes up to Ryan, pulling him into a hug instantly and pulling back after a second to check him over for obvious injuries.

“Where the fuck were you guys?” Michael demands after a few seconds of desperately trying to smother the overwhelming relief with hugs.

“Southern Oregon.” They respond in exhausted unison.

“How did you get all the way back up here?” Lindsay tilts her head to the side. Ryan produces a set of keys from his pocket.

“In middle class style. We stole a car.”

Kdin and Caleb finally catch up in time to hear Ryan. “Shit, dude! Way to one up me!” The former jokes, punching Ryan lightly on the arm. “All I’ve stolen is some asshole’s wallet.”

Ryan chuckles at that as Ray and Gavin arrive in the little bubble. “What are we talking about?” Gavin asks quietly.

“Ryan stole a car, boi!” Michael grins excitedly, but Gavin seems uncertain.

“How big of a car?”

“What, having one isn’t good enough?” The cow hybrid laughs, but Gavin doesn’t smile and laugh along like he usually would.

“There are... Eight of us, now. How many can that car seat?”

“I don’t know about can, but it’s certainly going to seat eight.” He replies. After a beat of silence, Ryan pulls Gavin into a short hug. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Gavin nods mechanically against his shoulder, then takes a step back. “Where you were, did they give you any sort of injection?”

Ryan and Jack exchange a glance. “Well, they were giving them to us, but we escaped before we got ours.” The group visibly relaxes as he explains that how they got out. “Why? Do you know what the injection is?”

Gavin opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, a fox man stumbles through the doors of the convenience store and promptly vomits blood all over the front of his shirt and pants. He looks up at them and Lindsay recoils in shock. Blood is leaking out of his eyes and nose, dribbling down his face.

“Help,” he wheezes, and then he collapses.

\--

\--

\--

\--

“This is an urgent report from a medical official from a research center on the west coast. If you can hear this, please turn your device up and listen carefully.”

“Hello. My name is Doctor Matthew Austin Feliark, and I have made... A terrible mistake. In the wake of mankind’s metamorphosis into a new species, I was hired by the government to reverse the damage that they had done. You see, all of this hybrid business was started by a top secret project known as the Rogers Initiative. A secret research team was deployed several years ago to a remote tropical corner of the world to retrieve a very special kind of flower. They took their samples back to a facility in southern Texas, where they were genetically modified to make their incredibly potent pollen even stronger. Eventually, the flowers began to kill the bees that were housed there as pollinators. They cycled through a myriad of pollinators until they discovered the only species capable of living amongst the flowers: monarch butterflies.

They continued to strengthen the flowers, and it reached the point where a human could not survive more than a few minutes in their greenhouse room. Everything was going according to plan, until something went devastatingly wrong; one of the windows of the greenhouse suddenly shattered, and many of the butterflies escapes. Monarch butterflies are migratory creatures, so these went where their instinct naturally dictated they should. While following this route, they also began to shed naturally. Their falling scales were consumed by a man who had grown up outside of the US, and had a completely different immune memory than anyone local to this area. The small amount of pollen still in the system of the butterfly transferred to him through the scales of its wings, and it quickly went to work rewriting his DNA and creating completely new cells. Impossibly quickly, he grew a set of hybrid parts. He was the first of our kind.

As others came into contact with his infected cells, they too began to grow hybrid parts. The mutation spread rapidly through the population of the world, and the director of the Rogers Initiative contacted me in search of a solution to his mistake. I located the original hybrid and created what I thought would function as a reversal command from his cells. I believed that my vaccine would force human cells to rewrite themselves once again, and shed the parts that we had grown, returning us back to humans. But that is not what it did. Instead, the vaccine sends cells on a warpath to destroy anything that isn’t a normal human cell, which is every cell in a hybrid’s body. I thought I was distributing a painless solution; instead, I was spreading the world’s most efficient cancer.

What I have done is unforgiveable and I do not expect that anyone will live long enough to reverse the damage I have caused. To any and all who can hear me...

I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is five months late  
> * punches myself sixteen times in the face in quick succession *
> 
> also NO, this is NOT the end of the series like i said. i am a LIAR.  
> the rest will be posted in a NEW WORK in less than 24 HOURS.
> 
> and if it isn't, feel free to complain loudly in my askbox at kingvav.tumblr.com/ask  
> anon is enabled B)


End file.
